May 23, 1967

Today Sir Joseph Lockwood, head of EMI, received the following letter from the BBC:

Which from our perspective is, of course, hilarious — especially given that “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” slipped right under their radar and they seemingly had no problem with “I get high with a little help from my friends.”

But at the same time, The Beatles’ response was disingenuous. Paul said:

The BBC have misinterpreted the song. It has nothing to do with drug taking. It’s only about a dream.

While John stated,

The laugh is that Paul and I wrote this song from a headline in a newspaper. It’s about a crash and its victim. How can anyone read drugs into it is beyond me. Everyone seems to be falling overboard to see the word drug in the most innocent of phrases.

This is clearly bullshit. Paul later admitted:

I had this sequence that fitted, “Woke up, fell out of bed,” and we had to link them. This was the time of Tim Leary’s “Turn on, tune in, drop out” and we wrote, “I’d love to turn you on.” John and I gave each other a knowing look: “Uh-huh, it’s a drug song. You know that, don’t you?”

To which John probably didn’t respond, but should have: “Some people want to fill the world with silly drug songs.”